


Kilmer

by poisontaster



Series: AKB Outtakes [2]
Category: Actor RPF, CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, BDSM, M/M, Multi, Sexual Slavery, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:58:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retrospective of the American artist Val Edward Kilmer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kilmer

_From Wikipedia:_

**Biography**

Val Edward Kilmer (b. December 31 in [Los Angeles, California](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles,_California)) is an American artist, primarily known as a [photographer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographer). He studied at [The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union) and was, at the time, the youngest person to be accepted into the fine arts program. His body of work includes photographs, collages, sculpture, installations, paintings, drawings and artists books.

Kilmer made a name for himself in the mid-1980's after a rapid-fire string of critically and commercially successful art shows, including his _Top Secret!_ , a gritty photographic exploration of the streets of Los Angeles, _Real Genius_ , a mixed media series incorporating traditional techniques like paint and photography with found media like transistor chips and popcorn and his best known _Top Gun_ portraiture series of several prominent Lords and Ladies with their body-slaves.

* * *

_From ArtandCulture.com_

…Though best known for his work in the mid-1980's, it would be a mistake to completely discount Kilmer's later work, despite their lack of commercial success. Though the _Top Gun_ photo series is his most well-known success—and also notable for introducing Kilmer to Lord Thomas Cruise, his patron and close friend—Kilmer's later works demonstrate a more sharp-edged maturity than his previous pieces, as well as a startling grasp and depth of artistic technique and gesture. 

_The Doors_ is probably the most overlooked of Kilmer's collections, largely because of its violent and controversial nature. It is, however, the most obvious marker of his changing viewpoint and the influence of his rise to (temporary) prominence. _The Doors_ is also notable as the beginning of Kilmer's use of his own body-slaves as inspiration for his work.

* * *

_From the Los Angeles Gallery of Modern Art: **Val Kilmer: Problematic Perspective**_

Val Edward Kilmer (artist)  
 _ **The End**_ , part of _The Doors_ series  
Mixed media (wood, steel, photographs, paper  & ink, charcoal, leather, newspaper)  
Overall: 73.7 x 92.4 cm (29 x 36 3/8 in.) framed: 96.5 x 115.2 x 6.6 cm (38 x 45 3/8 x 2 5/8 in.)  
Collection of Lady Nicole Kidman  
1993.104.9

**Los Angeles Gallery of Modern Art Brief Guide**

Kilmer was known to be part of the Sado-Masochistic sub-culture in Los Angeles. _The End_ represents the first inclusion of Sado-Masochistic themes into his work, a theme that permeates all his work thereafter.

Though the piece depicts Kilmer's body-slave of the time (name unknown), it is more clearly a metaphor for Kilmer's own struggles at the time with his sudden commercial and financial success. 

**_In the background is a young, naked and blindfolded slave in front of a welded triangular frame. A hooded male figure has his hand on the boy's shoulder, forcing him to his knees while two other figures--male and female, similarly hooded--shackle his wrists to the frame's crossbars. Metal chains are embedded in the wood of the frame, ending in the shackles. In the lower right foreground of the piece, a fourth hooded figure--this one drawn, rather than photographed--stands watching, a double headed axe (labrys) in one hand, a thin whip curling from the other, while a skeletal figure licks its boots._ **

* * *

_From Rewriting America: An Analysis of Val Kilmer's Visual Slave Narratives in Modern Art by Willow Pinkett-Smith_ (excerpted)

Though it is fairly universally agreed that Val Kilmer's extensive use of slaves in his art was an ongoing metaphor of his own feelings of entrapment, no examination of his subjects—superficial or otherwise—has yet been made, a curious oversight, given that he's one of the only American artists to have ever used slaves so extensively. 

[snip]

...At the point in time that Kilmer was obtaining his first commercial and critical successes, he was taken under the wing of Thomas Cruise--widely famed for both his philanthropy and his penchant for pre-pubescent body-slaves. Indeed, Kilmer's first body-slave--part and parcel of his rising star--was a cast-off from the Cruise household. This body-slave—known only from Kilmer's extensive diaries as J—became Kilmer's first slave-muse, inspiring somewhere between thirty and seventy-five of Kilmer's shown works[16] and literally thousands of photographs and sketches, most of which have only recently come to light with Kilmer's recent and untimely death. 

[16] The slave J is not always identifiable in Kilmer's works, either due to obscuring materials like hoods or masks, Kilmer's own collaging techniques or the slave's positioning in the frame, as with _A Feast of Friends_ , where his face is hidden by the hips of the men to either side.

[snip]

…fair to say that Kilmer was obsessed with what he characterized ( _Diaries, Vol. 19_ ) as "…J's incredible malleability, a chameleon-like ability to take on whatever characteristics he deems will be most pleasing, be it tears, ecstasy or quiet, bland-faced submission." A great deal of his written and photographic record of this period revolves around the twin figures of Cruise (arguably seen as his 'master') and his slave J, making it all the more surprising when Kilmer sold J not too long after the failure of his _The Real McCoy_ show.

[snip]

…one can talk about the influence of J on Kilmer's work, but it's difficult to do anything other than speculate about J himself. Though extensively documented through Kilmer's work, everything about him is seen only through Kilmer's filter, even the poses of his body, the expressions on his face—all of it only what Kilmer wants us to see. What unguarded and uncalculated moments are to be found in the scraps of Kilmer's darkroom floor, deemed unworthy for public consumption? Is the pain and embarrassment visible on J's face in _Close to You_ a genuine expression or something only assumed for Kilmer—and the viewer's—pleasure? In _End of The Night_ , Kilmer's only self-portrait, is the contentment on J's face—as he lays his head on his master's knee—genuine or part of the same malleability Kilmer lauded him for?

The answers are unknown.

* * *

_From imdb.com:_

**Memorable quotes for  
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: The Lives and Times of Val Kilmer**

Val Kilmer: Being successful doesn't change things. You think that it will, you think that painful, lonely part of you will go away, but it doesn't. And no matter how successful you are, you wake up one day and find out that you've done a lot that you regret. _I've_ done a lot that I regret.


End file.
